"God's Not Dead" Movie

[Illuminess]

You have to realize that for some people all they have in this world is their faith. They may have no home, income or anything else. When people try to take that away then yes, people become defensive because it is all that is holding them up.

I completely understand that. In fact, I would same the same about myself. Without my spirituality I'd be a mess, but I don't feel threatened. I feel centered and on track more than ever. If someone wants to try to say that what I believe is absurd then they can have a go all they want. Nobody should have to prove anything to anyone, but misrepresentation should enrage anyone. That's far more personal than just telling someone they're beliefs are rubbish.

My personal path has a saying: "every man and every woman is a star." That means we're all on our own individual orbit, and collision is impossible on its natural course. We value all belief systems and include all walks of life, because the ultimate force between us is Love. When someone tries to interfere with that orbit — or as we call True Will — it then becomes intrusive and worthy of reaction. So, to me, the film was a sneaky way of not only intruding upon the Christian faith, but also condoning the intrusion of atheism.

Sure, not everyone is going to be bothered by it if they don't see it that way, but I felt it to be unfair, and it's really hard for me to just stay quiet.

But faith can never be taken away. You can lose it, gain it, question it, or challenge it, but you never take it from someone. All you can really take is someone's freedom to express it, and when that happens someone had better not tolerate it.

[Illuminess]

This is why people get offended. Faith is NOT about biological evidence, it is about belief and what gives a person peace of mind and soul.

And I wasn't referring to faith having anything to do with biological evidence. That bit had to do with the way people judge and condemn those of us who are neurologically different whether it be transgender, autistic, or whatever.

"It just makes me ill how we're still perpetuating the same old primitive attitude towards those who think or believe differently. Even when there's biological evidence for it people are still immovable."

So, clearly I need to just stop talking, because I'm apparently not being clear enough.

[Jessica Merriman]

Nobody should have to prove anything to anyone, but misrepresentation should enrage anyone.

You are deciding what is misrepresentation, aren't you? That is judgmental and causes the defensiveness from the opposition. 

[Illuminess]

You are deciding what is misrepresentation, aren't you? That is judgmental and causes the defensiveness from the opposition. 

And you are deciding that that's what I'm doing and assuming it's an act of judgment. I said that when my character is made suspect again I was done. So, lock the thread. I won't make another post like this.

[Jessica Merriman]

TOPIC LOCKED.

[Jessica Merriman]

Topic reopened per Administration.

[Jessica Merriman]

Bumped to continue dialog.

[Colleen M]

Quoting a few of your points here.

Faith by definition is complete trust or confidence in someone or something (check the dictionary,!).  By definition, an atheist has unwavering faith there is no god.  If you did not have this faith, then you would have to concede there is the possibility of a god.  Can we agree on that? 

OED, Definition 1, I assume?  Definition 2 (including 2.1 and 2.2) is worth a look as it's the definition which is germane to a religious discussion.  It doesn't help you.  Putting aside Definition 2 synonyms being entirely religious, none of the Definition 1 synonyms have anything in common with rational conclusions as embraced by atheism.  I'd also point out that even making any hay of the holes in the generalized Definition 1 involves identifying the complete rejection of trust or confidence in something as its opposite "complete trust or confidence in something" which would be quite an adventure as the definition is for a positive assertion and you're attempting to apply that metric to a negative assertion.  That's a heck of a set of logical obstacles to try to work against already, and I haven't even raised the humor of the real killer yet.  Unfortunately, much of the neat stuff at the OED seems to be behind a paywall and I'm too lazy to dig up my old unabridged print OED for the benefit of purely private viewing at the moment.  Shall we turn to an admittedly lesser dictionary for both convenience and transparency?   

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith

faith noun \ˈfāth\
: strong belief or trust in someone or something

: belief in the existence of God : strong religious feelings or beliefs

: a system of religious beliefs
plural faiths

Full Definition of FAITH

1
a :  allegiance to duty or a person :  loyalty
b (1) :  fidelity to one's promises (2) :  sincerity of intentions
2
a (1) :  belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) :  belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion
b (1) :  firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) :  complete trust
3
:  something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially :  a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>

This rhymes with the OED well enough, but it adds something I didn't see on the OED page.     

Antonyms
atheism, godlessness

That seems pretty explicit, no?  We have checked the dictionary and can call the dictionary's view that faith and atheism are opposites well-documented?  How about a thesaurus?

  http://thesaurus.com/browse/faith

Antonyms for faith
disbelief disloyalty dishonesty distrust doubt faithlessness inconstancy lying treachery uncertainty unsteadiness agnosticism denial misgiving rejection skepticism suspicion unbelief

Putting aside the ones relating to integrity and looking at the religious context, we've got disbelief, distrust, doubt, agnosticism, denial, rejection, skepticism, suspicion, and unbelief.  No, I have no idea how agnostics got on this list but not atheists.  Still, there are a lot of antonyms for faith that have more in common with atheism than religion. 


And that brings us to the real killer of the idea that a theist can parse holes in a generalized definition to even suggest faith is in any way part of atheism.  We actually have to throw out the dictionary's definition altogether without ever giving it any thought or consideration whatsoever.  Ultimately it's nice when a dictionary reflects reality here, but that's all it could ever do because at the end of the day atheists started and ended the conversation with the only vote that ever mattered on what I point out is essentially the definition of the atheist position.  Otherwise, we'd have one of those situations where somebody else gets to tell you that your understanding of who you are and what you believe is inaccurate, that they know what you want and believe better than you do, and that their opinion somehow matters at least as much as yours on core concepts of your identity.  And that's just silly.  People are certainly entitled to an opinion on whether we're right or wrong, but obviously no foreign party gets to come along after the fact and exactly reverse our understanding of who we are with their wildly inaccurate misconceptions for the benefit of their own worldview.  Can we agree instead that each group should have the freedom to define their own position without the opposition's help?   Or would my faith be misplaced in hoping for such?   

I repeat my observation that theists really do generally have trouble grasping the fact that faith truly has no role in atheism whatsoever while atheists are generally (I know I am specifically) incapable of following the thinking behind belief.  It does help to keep me from thinking I'm wise and all-knowing and it reminds me that the other person does a few things I simply can't do and sometimes has an approach to the world I'll never fully understand.  Nobody, absolutely nobody, focuses on spirituality out of a belief they have all the answers.  Usually (clergy and some others aside) most people pay it the most attention when they're hurting.  We all know the transgender depression statistics.  I do think we emphatically agree that nobody here should be so much as tapped when down, and I definitely echo your preference for no posts which can be perceived as "dismissive" regardless of how much benefit of the doubt you give somebody's intent.  This really is the more open section where various parties are supposed to try to be nice to each other and it pays to go out of your way to tread softly here.   

And it really does sound like a dreadful movie.  There are times I think the last good movie prominently featuring religion was The Name of the Rose.  I'm not sure what the last good movie really directly addressing the merits or flaws of any particular religion was.